Azasite News

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 21, 2016 – Gonorrhea appears to be developing resistance to the two antibiotics that constitute the last available treatment option for the sexually transmitted bacteria, U.S. health officials announced Wednesday. Gonorrhea samples taken last spring from seven patients in Honolulu showed resistance to azithromycin at dramatically higher levels than typically seen in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported at its STD Prevention Conference in Atlanta. Five of the samples also showed increased resistance to ceftriaxone, the antibiotic given alongside azithromycin in the dual regimen recommended by the CDC. This is the first cluster of cases to show increased resistance to both azithromycin and ceftriaxone, said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. Data ... Read more

THURSDAY, June 23, 2016 – In an alarming development, British public health experts have confirmed a case of throat gonorrhea that proved untreatable with the standard antibiotic regimen. The patient, a heterosexual man who had just returned to the United Kingdom from Japan, wasn't cured by a pair of antibiotics used as the first-line gonorrhea treatment in many countries, including the United States. "This case highlights that gonorrhea may become untreatable due to antimicrobial resistance," warned Gwenda Hughes, section head of sexually transmitted infections at Public Health England. "Despite successful treatment of this case with higher doses of antibiotics, this approach to treatment would only be an interim solution," noted Hughes, who was not involved with the new study. "Higher-dose treatments are not suitable for all patients, and resistance to higher doses is likely to ... Read more

TUESDAY, Nov. 17, 2015 – Quickly clobbering a cold with a certain antibiotic might help kids who are prone to severe respiratory tract infections, a new study suggests. Doctors generally are advised not to prescribe antibiotics for routine viruses like the common cold. But for especially vulnerable children, one antibiotic in particular – azithromycin – might thwart more serious illness, researchers said. As many as one-quarter of preschoolers suffer from recurrent wheezing in their first 6 years of life, according to background information in the new report. "These kids are basically fine until they get a cold, and then every time they get a cold it goes into their chest and causes wheezing," said Dr. Robyn Cohen, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. Researchers have found they can knock out a cold bug before it progresses to a more serious ... Read more

FRIDAY, Oct. 30, 2015 – A new Canadian study did not find any association between two common types of antibiotics taken during pregnancy and a higher risk of adverse effects to the baby. Four out of 10 pregnant women are prescribed antibiotics, with azithromycin and clarithromycin being the most common. They belong to a class of drugs called macrolides. "With penicillin, macrolides are amongst the most used medications in the general population and in pregnancy. However, debate remained on whether it is the infections or in fact the macrolides used to treat them that put women and their unborn child at greater risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including birth defects," said study co-leader Anick Berard, a professor of pharmacy at the University of Montreal. "We therefore aimed to estimate the risk of major congenital malformations after fetal exposure to the two most commonly used ... Read more

MONDAY, Sept. 12 – Repeated use of antibiotics among patients who receive eye injections for such ophthalmic conditions as age-related macular degeneration can lead to the emergence of drug-resistant germs, according to a new study. More than eight million people in the United States are affected by age-related macular degeneration, and its treatment involves monthly injections that are typically followed by antibiotics to prevent such complications as inflammation of the eye. Researchers from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville found, however, that long-term use of antibiotics after eye injection therapy may promote the growth of hard-to-treat germs. "Repeated exposure of ocular flora [microbes living on or inside the body] ... may select for resistant bacterial strains and cultivate 'superbugs' with multiple-drug resistance ..." the study's authors wrote a news ... Read more